Everyday Live Happy

Halloween means dressing up. We take this seriously at our house. In fact the main reason I bought a sewing machine was so I could make costumes for this girl. (For some reason my 14 year old son doesn't want me to make him costumes...) This year she was a mummy obviously. But we did a little bit different take on it.  First I tea dyed her long sleeved shirt, leggings and a cream colored sheet, so they would have an old look to them. You can't really tell from the picture but they aren't the white color that they appear to be.  Then I cut the sheet into strips and randomly sewed them onto her shirt. Focusing more on her torso. There is also some ribbon and gold tulle mixed into the wraps. I did add a few more wraps around the arm after she put it on so that some of the strips wrapped around her hands. Those strips I just safety pinned on. The skirt is made from the sheet with lace sewed on the bottom. Then strips of fabric hang down with gold tulle sewe...

We have a tradition at our house that we love. We have done it off and on for many years, but we have done it every year for the past 10 years. We make a Halloween house. Think gingerbread house for Halloween. We make it out of graham crackers so we can make the tallest, spookiest looking house. We have got together with friends many of the years, but not this year. Kids, schedules, work and holidays don't make it easy to have a day that works for many people. So my daughter and I put together our house for this year. Like I said graham crackers and hot glue until you get something that you like. We have made these for years so we kind of have an idea of what to do to so it turns out according to our idea. Most years our houses are pretty similar, but never exactly the same. Since it's a Halloween house you want it to look run down and haunted. So perfect lines and perfectly broken crackers are not needed. In fact the more mismatched it looks the better. Then com...

My cute husband indulges my love of decorating for holidays. He never complains and often helps me get things done. Luckily for him he likes Halloween. His birthday is at the first part of October and he always asks for a different kind of cake. This year though my daughter and I decided that he was going to get a Halloween themed cake. We even picked out a monster looking one that we wanted to try. Then my husband decided that he wanted to have a cake that we refer to as Brownie Delight. It is yummy layers of yumminess! But it has to be made in a regular cake pan. So our monster idea was out. But I was still determined to add a little Halloween to it. We decided to make a graveyard on top, but weren't exactly sure what we were going to do when we started to make the cake. The entire recipe is at the bottom of this post but here's how it goes together. I forgot to take a picture of the first layer. It is just a brownie layer. In fact the recipe calls for your favorit...

My daughter is really into the Mexican holiday that celebrates the day of the dead. Actually it's more that she likes the decor and makeup of the holiday. She was wanting to make a Halloween decoration that incorporated that. Luckily we found this cool black, glitter skull for her to use as her base. She also got some bright colored puffy paint to use for painting. She liked the colors and really wanted something with a tip so that she had control over the design. She got right to work. It took her a couple of hours to finish it, but she was really pleased when she was done. In some places that paint ran some, but she just waited until it dried and then she touched it up. It made the paint kind of thick in some places, but it is still really great anyway! Here are a few more angles.  Even though this doesn't really match with the Halloween decor that we already have, it will still have a prominent place. My daughter is only 11 and is always...

It is finally October! It is one of my favorite times of the year. It is finally fall. The leaves are changing color. It is sweater and boots season. And most importantly, it is time to celebrate Halloween! I LOVE Halloween! I'm not exactly sure when this obsession started. As a kid I loved dressing up and going trick or treating and carving jack-o-lanterns. Now I try to decide for months what I'm going to be for Halloween and what costume I'm going to make for my daughter. We have it narrowed down to a couple of options. I have all of my decorations (and there are many!) up by the end of September. We go to the pumpkin patch near our home complete with a hay wagon ride around a field of pumpkins. We have a get together with friends to decorate Halloween houses. (Think gingerbread house except with graham cracker house creations and decorated to look like a haunted house! It is great!) Of course with the invention of Pinterest my daughter and I have already come up with...

My daughter in law Ashley is expecting her and my son's first child - and our first grandchild. We are pretty excited and of course they are too! They have lots to do though and only a couple of weeks to get it all done. Luckily my cute sister in law, Becca, through her a baby shower. Once they had the shower they would know which items they still needed to get. What to buy? Kind of hard because I'd already given her my standard baby gift. Goodnight moon and a blanket or pajamas. I'd given her that months ago. I knew that I wanted to make a gift for them. I had a neighbor that had made her expectant daughter some adorable burp cloths. That's a funny thing to say "adorable burp cloths." But they really are. She used fat quarters and terry cloth. I was able to find really fun fat quarters. They were printed with the cutest boy patterns that I've ever seen. Animals and monsters. The theme of the shower was safari so of course the animals were perfect. Monst...

I love to bake. I get it from my mom who also loves to bake and let me help her when I was a little girl. One of my favorite things to make is homemade chocolate chip cookies. Now these can be tricky. There are lots of different recipes, but I truly think that I have the best one. I have made these cookies since my oldest kids were just little ones and my youngest two weren't even born yet. In other words I have made these cookies literally hundreds of times. Truth be told we love cookies at out house so that number could really be thousands of times! Not many things beat a cookie fresh from the oven. Still warm with gooey chocolate chips to enjoy. Yum-my! This is a recipe that I do not mess with at all. The only things that I will do differently is what I add in place of the chocolate chips. I have added peanut butter chips, Reese's Pieces', Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (cut into smaller pieces) as well as other chips. Walk down the baking aisle at the store and see ...